Where to start ?

[elporrofrito]

I've already learned on how to use particles and basic verb conjugations including the te-form and the stem of verb in japanese sentence structure so far. Is there anything I need to be startintg to learn outside the basic contexts like ru-verb, u-verb, te-from, and the stem of verb ? if so, which part should I start learning from ? Thanks

 

[Mike Cash]

What have you used so far?

 

[elporrofrito]

The Te-Form,Verb Steam, Potential form and some conjunction words I haven't been able to remember it all. I do think Japanese isn't just about verb conjugations and particles so I was thinking that I might be able to improve my Japanese by being in a community and here I am.

 

[Mike Cash]

What learning materials have you used?

 

[elporrofrito]

Most materials I've learned are on this site:
(Learn Japanese | Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese
I still doubt its completeness and it's kind of difficult if some people who don't start it from the very beginning. I came to this site and was expecting if I could learn Japanese within a short time. I'm still hoping to find who can help me with grammar.

 

[Toritoribe]

You already got a response from Chris-san in your another thread.

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

Most materials I've learned are on this site:
(Learn Japanese | Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese
I still doubt its completeness and it's kind of difficult if some people who don't start it from the very beginning. I came to this site and was expecting if I could learn Japanese within a short time. I'm still hoping to find who can help me with grammar.

Tae Kim's guide is very complete in terms of modern grammar. Of course it doesn't include the entire language's vocabulary and doesn't really address learning kanji at all, although it uses them. It also only touches on antiquated grammar here and there, in cases that are likely to still appear, if only rarely, in modern usage.

The guide has two disadvantages however, one of which is the lack of comprehensive dialogues (for comprehension practice) and exercises (for production practice). The 'complete' guide remedies this somewhat compared to the 'grammar' guide, but it still is inferior in this respect to the better textbook courses.

More importantly for you, I think, is that it has a very idiosyncratic way of explaining things. In particular, it uses a lot of highly ungrammatical pseudo-English to give very literal translations of example sentences. This is fine for native speakers who will immediately recognize that the expressions which are ungrammatical in English help demonstrate the Japanese grammar... but for the non-native speaker, I expect this creates an enormous barrier to understanding. Of course, the guide has been translated into many other languages (I assume it uses similarly ungrammatical examples in those translations, though I can't read them myself to check.) If your native language is one of those, then that's great... but if you're trying to use Tae Kim in a version that is not your native language, I don't think it will be very easy to understand.

 

[elporrofrito]

Tae Kim's guide is very complete in terms of modern grammar. Of course it doesn't include the entire language's vocabulary and doesn't really address learning kanji at all, although it uses them. It also only touches on antiquated grammar here and there, in cases that are likely to still appear, if only rarely, in modern usage.

The guide has two disadvantages however, one of which is the lack of comprehensive dialogues (for comprehension practice) and exercises (for production practice). The 'complete' guide remedies this somewhat compared to the 'grammar' guide, but it still is inferior in this respect to the better textbook courses.

More importantly for you, I think, is that it has a very idiosyncratic way of explaining things. In particular, it uses a lot of highly ungrammatical pseudo-English to give very literal translations of example sentences. This is fine for native speakers who will immediately recognize that the expressions which are ungrammatical in English help demonstrate the Japanese grammar... but for the non-native speaker, I expect this creates an enormous barrier to understanding. Of course, the guide has been translated into many other languages (I assume it uses similarly ungrammatical examples in those translations, though I can't read them myself to check.) If your native language is one of those, then that's great... but if you're trying to use Tae Kim in a version that is not your native language, I don't think it will be very easy to understand.

Thank You SomeCallMeChris. I was thinking whether I should start looking for another grammar guide but it has all been cleared to me. I have decided to continue to learn until I've finished the guide. What really matters to me now is its completeness while I still learn on how to use new words and write Kanjis in the right stroke order. As for the available translations on the site, I can interchangeably switch languages into English or Indonesian. The translation may sound a little bit weird even in my languange but I'm already used to it.